Statues from the facade of the Parthenon 

Then there’s the Elgin Marbles, which are a series of marble statues that Lord Elgin took from the Parthenon in Athens. He bought them from the ruling Turks about 100 years after a Turkish ammunition depot stored inside the Parthenon blew up. The controversy over these statues stems back to the time that they arrived in London. Suffice it to say, a lot of countries whose stuff was taken for museums want their stuff back. This includes Greece, and they want these statues back. For now, they appear to be staying put.

Roof of the Great Hall of the British Museum 

A replica of the Broad Street fountain shown by John Snow to be the source of a nineteenth century cholera epidemic, a milestone in epidemiology. 

Before we went to the show, we visited Broad Street to see the site of the water pump dismantled by John Snow, a British physician of the time. This is basically the greatest epidemiology story ever told, and I can’t do justice to it. Instead, one of my public health professors, who is fascinated by Dr. Snow, created a web site that tells the story.

If you don’t have time to look through the website, the story goes that Dr. Snow was able to determine the cause of a nineteenth century cholera epidemic by tracing the disease to a water pump that drew water from the Thames downstream of a contaminated source. This helped to end this epidemic and lay the foundations of epidemiology.

More to the point, there is a John Snow pub behind the pump, where we had a couple of beers and some nachos and pizza in honor of this public health legend.

The musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, was very funny and, although the songs aren’t that familiar, they are quite catchy. As it was raining when we got out of the show and the restaurant we wanted to go to was spilling out people onto the street, we went back to the hotel. I’m still full from those nachos anyway. We also had fries and onion rings.

Tomorrow is our last full day in London, so we’ve got a few odds and ends to do, and some shopping if we get the time. Until later...

Day 4 in London

Buckingham Palace 

Nick left at 1 AM this morning to catch the bus for the airport. His flight left at 6 AM and the airport is two buses away, so he wanted to make sure he got there in time. Since we waited up with him, we went to sleep late and had to drag ourselves out of bed to start the day today.

The weather was dreary as we left the hotel. As we were walking into the train station, a Tube official stopped us from going in. Apparently it was rush hour, and there were too many people in the station. After 10 minutes, she let us through, and it was a madhouse inside: wall to wall people, and almost everyone in suits. The English are polite though, so even though we were crammed in, we were hardly jostled at all.

Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. We had a good view of the outside of the palace, but the guards were wearing regular black uniforms, with no big furry hats in sight. I guess it was because it was raining. It would be heavy to wear those hats in the rain.

Nan taking a picture of Thai tourists 

Big Ben and the London Eye in the rain 

Because everything around the palace was still closed, we walked to the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. That was kind of a bust. We couldn’t get into Parliament since we’re not UK citizens, and Westminster Abbey was closed until the mid-afternoon. Plus, it started pouring as we were walking there, and even our umbrellas couldn’t keep us dry.

We walked back to the palace area, and checked out the Queen’s Gallery. This museum holds various works of art from the Queen’s collection and some rotating shows. It was a little tiring though. The one cool thing was the collection of some of the royal jewelry (a necklace with a 60 and 90 carat diamond) and these little figurines that were carved out of semi-precious stones.

LA Fitness by Buckingham Palace 

A right hand drive Prius 

Mmm noodles! 

After lunch at a Chinese noodle restaurant, we went to the Royal Mews. This is where the royal family parks their carriages and cars when they’re not using them. The horse-drawn carriages were all pretty cool, especially the one that Australia gave the royal family 20 years ago. It has air conditioning and power windows, and so six horses are needed to pull it. There was only one car on display, and that was an old-school Rolls Royce. Pretty cool, but I figured Prince Charles would have some kind of wild sports car collection.

Too bad I didn't drive 

Rolls Royce in the Mews 

The Gold Carriage. Nan thought the rider on the horse was alive and had to stay very still like the Buckingham Palace guards. 

Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery 

A short tube ride later, we came up to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. The museum features about 2000 paintings, including good Van Goghs, Monets, and Pissarros. To me the neatest one was the Seurat of the working people swimming in the polluted Seine. Overall it was a wonderful museum, but I think we’re getting tired of seeing old paintings.

One of the Chinatown gates 

We walked through Chinatown before heading to dinner at the Fox, a “gastro-pub.” This means that it’s a fancy restaurant inside of an old time pub. The food was wonderful, and the atmosphere was rustic, old timey European inn style. We were stuffed and tired after staying up the night before, so we came back to the hotel to rest.

Funny mural in Chinatown 

The inside of the Fox pub.  

Tomorrow, the British Museum and maybe the Tower of London. Plus some shopping and geeky public health exploration of the city if there’s time.

In Which Nan and Mike Go to Hampton Court Palace, Ride a Big Ferris Wheel, and Fall Asleep at the Symphony

This morning we woke up early again and took the tube to Waterloo Station. Nick wanted to go to Stonehenge, and Nan wanted to see a royal palace, so we split up. We caught a train out to Hampton Court Palace and Nick headed off to Stonehenge.


Hampton Court Palace 

King Henry VIII basically told a Catholic cardinal to give him Hampton Court Palace after he couldn't convince the Pope to give the king a divorce. He built it up and subsequent kings filled it with lots of art and servants. Today it's open to the public since the royal family has given it as a museum of Tudor times.

Bridge over the Thames at Hampton Court Palace 

Tudor tour guide. Nan's sitting where he wants to stand. 

This tour guide gave us a tour of Henry VIII's chambers. He was really serious about his stories, and he kept waving this white stick around pretending to cut people's heads off. He told pretty interesting tales though.

After finishing up looking at the King and Queen's rooms, we went out to the gardens. Since it's still spring in England, all the plants were in full bloom. The palace's formal gardens had some amazing flowers in them, but the most incredible were the tulips. These were a few of the tulips, and there were also deep purple ones, oranges, white ones and streaky orange-red ones.


Tulip garden, Hampton Court Palace